PicMonkey Mondays: Creating a Collage

So last week we talked baout how to use PicMonkey to insert text onto a photo– you’re a rock star! Now it’s time to make a collage. There is really no limit when it comes to using PicMonkey to make a collage. I struggled with this tutorial because there is just so much you can do and so much I want to show you. Making a collage is all about the creative process so no 2 people are going to look at the same set of pictures and come up with the identical results

I hope by the end of this tutorial that you will feel comfortable using anytemplate to create any customizedcollage that you may need. Everything –EVERYTHING– is able to be manipulated; no more boring 3×3 grids for you! Below you can see the template I started with looks nothing like the final product.

This will bring up the first tier of collage tabs where you can import photos. You will want to start with photos that have already been edited. PicMonkey has some photos there already if you just want to play with the collage features.

If you want to insert your own pictures you will click onthe box that says “Open Photos,” or use the dropdown menu to select photos from your computer.

Insider Tip: You can select several photos at once (using Command-click on Mac or Control-click on Windows). Here I selected a bunch of Valentine recipe photos:

The second tier of tabs will bring up a whole bunch of layouts. As I mentioned before these are just a starting point to get your creative juices going. Don’t feel boxed in by your options.

Choose your layout. Take note of the dimensions along the bottom. You can type in a number if you have specific dimensions that you need, or you can change dimensions by hovering your mouse over an outer border of your collage. When you see two thin blue lines appear, move the double arrow to stretch or shrink it. You can also do so by typing new numbers in the dimensions toolbar.

Insider Tip: If you need to unlock the proportions, click the padlock icon so it appears grey, not blue.

I chose a Facebook Cover template.

Insider Tip: Facebook Covers are 851×315. They will fit perfectly into the long cover photo on Facebook profiles.

The next tier of tabs is called Swatches. This is where I will be pulling the images for this tutorial (because I want you to focus on the method of creating a collage, not the images themselves).

Use the dropdown menu to select from Sweethearts or Winterland or grab some from your own comupter. These swatches are great if you don’t want every cell filled with a photo.

As I said, I’ll be using the swatches in order to focus on the method. From this point you would be grabbing your photos from the left sidebar. You can see that I selected a Facebook cover and I filled it. YAY! You can be done! Or not…

When you grab a photo from the left sidebar you can hover between cells until a blue line forms. Drop the photo there and it will squish it into the collage without changing the dimensions. Here I dropped a photo to the left:

Or above the large cell:

Or above the whole table:

You can also hover in between cells until a thin blue line appears to change the size of the cell. Drag the cell up or down, left or right. See how I shrunk the top cell:

Truly I cannot express enough how many options you have to drastically change the layout from the template you stared with. See what happens when I drop a photo to the right of the whole collage:

You can change your mind at any time. Hover over any photo until a small X appears in the upper right hand corner to remove an image:

Hover again to remove the cell completely:

You can already see that my collage looks very different from the template we started with, but we’re going to manipulate it even further. You know how I love to manipulate things.

The final tier of tabs on the left sidebar brings up the Background options. From here you can adjust the space between photos, corner rounding, and background color (or set the background color to “transparent”).

Insider Tip: take note of the color dropper. Use the Eyedropper tool to match the background color to a particular color in the photo.

Here you can see I clicked the eyedropper and clicked on a few colors until I decided on the grey:

You can still go back to any tier of menus and add/remove cells and rearrange photos:

Leave a few cells empty if you want to leave some open space to add text. The collage will save without the dotted line spacer holders:

I decided that I wanted all of the cells full but I wanted the top rectangle to be skinny. Hover between the cells until you see the thin blue line and drag the box up or down:

You are ready to save:

Do you want to add text?

Save your collage without text. Then click on the “Close” X in the upper right corner.

This will bring you back to the front screen when you can select “Edit a Photo:”

Because I don’t think this post is obscenely long already I thought I would just show you a few collages I made using this same Facebook Cover Template:

Have I convinced you? You can do ANYTHING with PicMonkey Collages! Don’t be boxed in!!!

Did you find this tutorial helpful? Please leave me any questions in the comment section below. I love hearing from you and I will do my best to explain things further or find an answer for you. I cannot wait to see what you guys create this week!

Disclosure: I told the awesome people at PicMonkey.com that I was putting this series together and they gave me a free Royale membership and said good luck. 😉 All opinions are 100% my own (and I had actually already bought and paid for my own membership because I heart PicMonkey so much). Everything I’m showing you in this 4 week series can be done for free without access to any Royale effects.

I use picmonkey for all my blog photos- it’s a great tool, easy, and free! I thought I knew everything there was to know, but you taught me a few things on this and your last tutorial. I didn’t know I could add more cells into the collage templates! Or copy all the text formatting to another text window! This is a really helpful series, thanks for the great information!

Yes! On the left side 4th tier down you will see a paint palette. Click on that a then you’ll see an option to adjust spacing or round corners. You can also change the color of the borders there as well.

Unfortunately no. You must work with photos that are already edited. If I notice that something needs tweaking in a collage I’m working on I usually will open up PicMonkey in a new window in my browser, edit the photo in question, and save it. When you go back to your first window then search for photos again and you will be able to select the new one that you just edited. I hope that helps. Thanks for stopping by!

This is an absolutely FANTASTIC tutorial, and I can’t wait to try all your steps…I just started playing around with a simple collage myself, and the first “snag” I hit was that I wanted to be able to “undo last move” or go back or something similar. I was liking what I had so far and then, because I’m not used to how it works yet, I accidentally clicked on something (maybe a border, maybe outside the box??) that totally screwed it up. Then I could NOT get back to what I had that I had liked so far. I have emailed picmonkey, but no response. Is there a way to Undo Last Move within the collage of picmonkey? Thank you again for the tutorial.

Great question Melissa. I save the photos to my computer at the highest resolution . From there you can print them however you normally print your photos (on your home printer, or through Shutterfly, Wal-Mart, etc.)

Thanks for this series. I’ve been using ipiccy for the last year. I love it but I decided I ought to see what all the picmonkey fuss was all about.

I can see there are a few things picmonkey can do that ipiccy can’t (or that I don’t know how to do there, at least). And now I finally know how to use the eye dropper tool – that made this completely worthwhile reading in itself! Thank you!

Wow !!! That tutorial was incredible … so clear, methodical, and full of possibilities ! I just began blogging last fall and learned about picmonkey last week. Your tutorial has helped me feel like I create some beautiful work without all the challenges that often come with learning a new tech tool ! THANK YOU !!! I will certainly explore your additional tutorials. Your work is marvellous !

Love your series! I don’t use PicMonkey, I use Gimp and have to make all my stuff from scratch. I’m going through your tutorials and they are enticing me into trying PicMonkey, at least for some of my blog’s photos. Thank you so much for sharing!

Is there a way to put more white border around just the outside of the collage, but not between each photo? I want to make something to put on a canvas. The outer edges will wrap around the block, so I need a much thicker white border.